Our language choices index specific social meanings and values. For example, both 식당 shikdang and 레스토랑 restorang refer to a restaurant in Korea, but the two words point to different social classes. The Sino‑Korean word shikdang typically refers to an ordinary dining establishment, whereas the English loanword restorang refers to an upscale, luxurious place, which often serves Western foods. The connotational difference between a vernacular term and English loanword in this example is perhaps just one of the many that showcase an ideology often associated with English, such as advancement, sophistication, and modernity.
English’s perceived prestige is also often used as a marketing tactic as illustrated by a well-known story about the origin of the name, lululemon, a famous North American athletic apparel retailer. When the founder, Chip Wilson, observed that his Japanese clients liked the name ‘Homless’, a company that sold skateboards, he thought the name’s popularity and the business’s success among young Japanese clients were due to the ‘l’ sound, a sound that the Japanese language doesn’t have. He thought that this novel sound conveyed the sense of ‘“Authentic” Americanism’ (Wilson Reference Wilson2018: 151), and that a name with multiple ‘l’s would increase a brand’s desirability even more.
We find another case of linguistic prejudice in the language of sexuality, a topic discussed in our previous editorial. Before the English word queer became popularized, Korean queer speakers used the term 이반 iban as a code‑word to refer to those with nonnormative sexualities regardless of sexual orientations. The term is an example of a creative word play. It replaces the first syllable 일il (‘one’ or ‘first’) from the Sino‑Korean word 일반 ilban with 이 i (‘two’ or ‘second’). The word 일반 ilban has double meanings, which can be distinguished only in a context or with a Chinese character. When written as 一般, 일반 ilban means ‘ordinary’ or ‘common’; when written as 一班, 일반 ilban means ‘the first class/group’. The term 이반 iban takes advantage of this polysemy, simultaneously encoding queer Korean speakers’ sense of not being ordinary/common and not belonging to the dominant group. Since the word 이반 (二般) iban derives from a common Korean word, it allowed queer speakers to remain stealthy while creating a sense of we‑ness and in‑group solidarity, a characteristic of collectivist society. However, the term fell out of favor as the word ‘queer’, along with many other English labels of sexuality, is increasingly adopted to label various sexual identities. Kim’s (Reference Kim2024) recent study showed that many Korean queer speakers feel more sophisticated and advanced when using English terms of sexuality. Although such feelings could be empowering, using English terms of sexuality as default vocabulary can obstruct the development of culturally appropriate vernacular terms.
The two East Asian countries mentioned here – Korea and Japan – are not likely to be considered underdogs in the global stage, and their ability to transform the global entertainment industry is one piece of evidence. As the world turns to them for inspiration, it remains to be seen how their growing cultural power could alter the linguistic prejudice steeped in our society.
In this issue, we are especially pleased to bring readers a collection of seven shorter articles exploring the theme of ‘world Englishes at the grassroots’. This special issue has been guest‑edited by two experts in the topic, Bebwa Isingoma and Christiane Meierkord. The guest editors have prepared a short introduction to the topic and curated the seven papers for the special issues. Each paper examines the acquisition and use of English internationally where speakers may not have had the opportunity to study a standardised version of the language in a context like, for example, formal English language education. This special issue resonates and extends Meierkord and Schneider’s (Reference Meierkord and Schneider2021) ground‑breaking (pun intended) work on English in grassroots contexts.
Chandrika Katrina Balasurbramanian explores the grassroots use of English in public signage and social media posts in both India and Oman. Ryan Durgasingh studies the uses of two varieties– Trinidadian English Creole (TEC and Trinidadian English (TE) – in the Caribbean island. Sandra Issel–Dombert examines the attitudes and ideologies that domestic workers from the Philippines express about English while working in Spain. Continuing the focus on women, Yoko Kobayashi introduces motivations and achievements of young Japanese women who seek to improve their English through travel to English‑speaking countries on working holidays.
Dorica Deborah Mirembe and Peace Yikiru return to the examination of English within the linguistic landscape, but in the context of Gulu City in Uganda. Farah Ramadhani and Jill Vaughan explore attitudes and ideologies that have shaped the English‑language practices of tour guides in Bali. Finally, Ida Syvertsen closes the collection of shorter articles with a study of the grassroots learning practices of Congolese refugees in Norway.
Three book reviews close this volume. John McWhorter reviews two festschrifts (edited by Aloysius Ngefac, Hans–Georg Wolf and Thomas Hoffmann) celebrating the works of Edgar Schneider and Augustin Simo Bobda. Sofie Rüdiger reviews Jieun Kiaer and Hyejeong Ahn’s Emergence of Korean English: How Korea’s Dynamic English is Born. Finally, Paolo Gaudio reviews Virginia Pulcini’s The Influence of English on Italian.
